Come back you've had a heart attack

But the following day he received an urgent telephone call telling him to return to hospital because he had suffered a heart attack.

The 33-year-old rugby player from Aldbourne points to his treatment as proof that the health service in Swindon is overstretched and unable to cope with the demands placed on it.

Mr Grant said: "I first felt that something was wrong when I was playing a game of rugby.

"I had this pain in my chest but I thought nothing of it. I had given up smoking a couple of months before that, so I just thought that it was something to do with that."

The pain grew worse throughout the week and on the Sunday Mr Grant awoke in agony.

"It was an unbelievable pain. I felt as if my chest was on fire, I was shouting the house down, but I did not know what was wrong with me. It really was worrying."

At about 11am that day, Mr Grant suffered a massive heart attack at home which threw him onto his knees and made him physically sick. Unsure of what had happened, he called his doctor who agreed to see him immediately.

"I did not realise what had happened at the time, although I realise now that was the moment when I had my heart attack.

He managed to drive the seven miles to his doctor's surgery in Lambourn where he was in such pain he had to lie down on the waiting room floor.

"As soon as he saw me, my doctor said I should go to Princess Margaret Hospital because he realised that I was in a very bad way."

At PMH, Mr Grant was placed on a hospital trolley in the Accident and Emergency department for 10 hours where he had blood tests and electro cardiogram tests to try to determine what was wrong with him.

The next morning he was told that staff could not find outwhat was wrong with him and he was discharged from the hospital after being told that he would need to return in eight week's time for further tests.

But the following morning he received a telephone call from a concerned hospital doctor who told him that he had suffered a serious muscle rupture in his heart and should return immediately.

Close examination of his test results revealed the seriousness of his condition and he was kept in for treatment.

"When I arrived at the hospital they told me it was a heart attack. I couldn't believe that they had sent me home. I had no idea what had happened. That is the last thing that you expect to happen to you at the age of 33.

"It was a real shock because I consider myself to be pretty fit. I was in the Royal Artillery for five years and play a lot of sport."

Mr Grant, a father-of-two, suffered the heart attack at the end of September, but is still feeling the effects.

He said: "I have a completely blocked artery which means that part of my heart is now dead.

"I have been told that I will never play sport again. I have come to terms with that but I am angry that my condition was not diagnosed earlier because they might have been able to give me clot-busting drugs which might have reduced the damage to my heart.

"I have no problems with the doctors and staff from the coronary care unit who I thought were brilliant. But I feel that the hospital is underfunded and the doctors and nurses are completely overworked."

Because of the damage sustained to Peter's heart, he now suffers angina if he exerts himself and he will have to take a cocktail of five different drugs for the rest of his life.

He has taken a three month break from his work as an IT consultant. "I have had a great deal of support from my wife Maggie and my two children William and Joshua. And the people in the village have been brilliant as well. It is a quite a small community and most people have got to hear about what happened to me.

"My experience has made me look at life in a different way. I used to get quite stressed out about things, now I realise some things are not that important.

"I just hope the hospital sits up and takes notice of my story so that something like this does not happen to someone else."